Brian Howey: Transvaginal ultrasound transducer for the masses

4:50 PM,
Mar. 8, 2013

Written by

Brian Howey

Amid all the ribald humor, the yuks, and even "Pope LaMarr I" at the Gridiron Dinner the other night, something leaped off the gigantic video screen in the Indiana Roof Ballroom.

It was a photo of a transvaginal probe, or an "ultrasound transducer." It looks sort of like a two-foot-long, hard plastic wand, with a handle and then a long, slender shaft with a round knob on the end.

In practice, the ultrasound transducer is inserted into a woman's vagina and pointed at the uterus. The intent is to produce an image of a fetus in the uterus. ...